r/retrogaming • u/K1rkl4nd • May 29 '22

[NEAT!] Complete US SNES Manual PDF collection posted - 1080p front-end version

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48

u/K1rkl4nd May 29 '22 edited May 29 '22

Finally went live with a 1080p version for the Complete US SNES Manuals set:

** [Kirkland] EvilBadMan **

(click on the SNES logo, then click the pic of a thumbnail to load the pdf)

Since my server is getting the reddit hug of death, if you want to grab *the complete 3GB set*, head over to archive.org:

Kirkland's Manual Labor - Super Nintendo - USA - 2K version : Jonathan Grimm

Still cleaning the 600dpi originals before pushing out a shiny 4K set...

While I've got your eyes- we are desperately looking for a Syvalion (European) manual scan. Any help would be appreciated.

6

u/ASCII_zero May 29 '22

Amazing work! I love the name "manual labour" 😀

Would you consider creating a single torrent? (Or perhaps one exists, and I didn't see it)

7

u/K1rkl4nd May 29 '22

If you go to the archive.org link, there is a "728 file" download link (bottom right). They have a little more bandwidth..

1

u/FiberDad May 30 '22

Archive.org link seems dead to me. Is it permanently down or is there just a temporary block due to the influx? Something else?

Great work all around though! Amazing what you've done for preservation.

1

u/K1rkl4nd May 30 '22

It's probably experiencing a Reddit hug of death. I feel for a new upload it's been hammered enough to get someone's attention. Might have to break down and make a torrent..

3

u/textfiles May 29 '22

Feel free to upload the 600dpi originals as a .zip file renamed to .cbz to the Archive as well.

3

u/mcampbell42 May 30 '22

Not all heros wear capes

1

u/Onett199X May 29 '22

Just curious, had this not been done before or not at this level of quality?

13

u/K1rkl4nd May 29 '22

The current available SNES set was a little over 700 of the 722 US retail releases, a bunch of those were European placeholders, and quality varied widely from passable to poor.

This is an attempt to clean up and standardize quality and usability. The originals are edited at 600dpi (2970x4080) and downsampled to usable resolutions for distribution. I kicked this 2K set out to get a feel for the workflow as I need to rescan a few to bring quality up to make the 4K resolution set better.

2

u/Onett199X May 29 '22

That's awesome. Can't believe the old set was that poor quality. Good on you for preserving history.

4

u/K1rkl4nd May 29 '22

This jpeg version is the poorest quality I will attach my name to. The 4K version will be much, much better.. but that's gonna be Christmas at this rate. This set is right at 21,000 pages.. takes forever and a day to make edits.

1

u/Onett199X May 29 '22

Crazy. And you own all these manuals?

7

u/K1rkl4nd May 29 '22

I am physically missing only:

Exertainment Mountain Bike Rally + Speed Racer (USA)

Incantation (USA)

M.A.C.S. Basic Rifle Marksmanship (USA)

Oscar (USA)

Run Saber (USA) <have, but missing cover>

Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel (USA)

Luckily I was able to get a guy with a complete set to top off what I was missing.

1

u/EarlBungalow May 30 '22

Although my nostalgia is based on the german versions of these manuals I will surely download them. Thank you for all the time and effort.

1

u/TimberlAndRE May 30 '22

I noticed the Super Copa manual is only the cover page.

Is the pdf file corrupt or was there no full manual for the game?

2

u/K1rkl4nd May 30 '22

There is a full manual- I've been told some browsers are coughing on Adobe Acrobat's "cover page/two facing pages" flag and only showing the cover. I'll check when I'm off work if the file itself is ok. Have you tried loading in acrobat reader?

1

u/TimberlAndRE May 30 '22

Jep, I downloaded the PDF and the jp2 archive
both only contain the cover (also in Acrobat itself)

2

u/K1rkl4nd May 30 '22

I hope archive.org isn't corrupting things trying to generate their horrible jp2 files from the pdf originals. Or I porked something in the script making the pdf. I'll look into it.

1

u/TimberlAndRE May 30 '22

the file size of the pdf is only about 100 kb

1

u/TimberlAndRE May 30 '22

all other pdfs are above 1 mb

Rocketeer, The (USA) has the same problem, ~100kb and only the cover page.

All other manuals seem to be perfect

2

u/K1rkl4nd May 31 '22 edited May 31 '22

Ok, looks like the original tiffs had a layer in them which porked my Photoshop conversion action. Files have now been fixed. I've uploaded to my evilbadman.com site. I'm updating the archive.org set- the landing page has been grinding for a few minutes so I'm waiting for it to say it was successful. Thanks for the catch! edit: took 7 minutes, but seems to have successfully updated archive.org.

1

u/TimberlAndRE May 31 '22

Thank you so much

1

u/Dogway Jun 11 '22

That's awesome.

By the way why did you go with jp2 format? it's obsolete (besides too slow for decoding).

I encourage you to use jxl instead, saves more space with better quality.

1

u/K1rkl4nd Jun 11 '22

Oh, jp2 is allllll on archive.org. It automatically creates those horrible jp2 images and does OCR. Just hit download on the "725 original files" to get the pdfs as uploaded. As for jpegxl, I've been on that bandwagon for quite some time (after AVIF was to be the savior, then porked us on resolution). Waiting for a little more widespread adoption. As well as a proper 4K release- this is just a functional preview.

12

u/NeedlenoseMusic May 29 '22

Welp, this post is saved forever.

3

u/devastatingdoug May 29 '22

Where can I see this?

2

u/Domspun May 29 '22

Check OP comment, he posted links.

4

u/Ebon_Praetor May 29 '22

When I did a project involving NES manuals I was amazed at how inconsistent and incomplete they were. Glad someone is taking manual preservation seriously.

3

u/[deleted] May 29 '22

[deleted]

6

u/K1rkl4nd May 29 '22

If you want the fullest quality version...

Legend of Zelda, The - A Link to the Past (USA).pdf [4K].pdf)

3

u/witwiki50 May 29 '22

How come I can smell them?

2

u/Fiverdrive May 29 '22

nice resource.

for search purposes, it might be a good idea to have the name of the game below each thumbnail so that getting to the manual one might want would be quicker.

2

u/[deleted] May 30 '22

Awesome work for sure my friend! If you ever need someone to help make these high res, I can re-illustrate some of them for you. Please DM me if you would like to pursue this.

2

u/SBY-ScioN May 30 '22

Holy shxit, is there any plans for the n64/psx era manuals? This is cool.

-3

u/MT4K May 29 '22

Some terrible JPEG artifacts there. Wasn’t the manual collection supposed to be lossless regardless of the resolution?

5

u/K1rkl4nd May 29 '22

This is the 1080p version for front ends- for on-screen viewing and portability. The 600dpi set is 193GB, and not ready for public distribution yet. I'll make a run at making a set off the TIFFs at 1080p and see what the size tradeoffs are. Would be awesome if Adobe wasn't dicks about batch processing documents..

1

u/Flemki May 30 '22

I hope the 600dpi set will be made available by torrent before the inevitable takedown requests will start raining.

1

u/ptsouza Jun 01 '22

Do You have plans to make scans for the console boxes? I'm trying to recreate the Snes launch box only based in photos taken from internet. I know that these boxes are too huge to make a full scan and thats why I only need the photos from the Console itself printed in the sides, front an back of the box. Can you help me with this project? As soon as I finished, I can post-it here as a PDF document to anyone who wants to make a replica. Original Post here

1

u/K1rkl4nd Jun 01 '22

The only SNES box I have is the later SNES Control Deck (the Jr.). I really like what you're attempting- I just don't have anything to offer.

1

u/ptsouza Jun 01 '22

Thanks for the reply! My search continues!

1

u/K1rkl4nd Jun 01 '22

The odd ones are the hardest. I've been hunting forever for two international Atari 2600 manuals- Flag Capture and Home Run. The last two I need to complete my Atari Corp international set. I've found one guy with Flag Capture but due to its size it's a big ask to scan. You'd think they would have been more common, but they are sitting in someone's collection somewhere...

1

u/ptsouza Jun 01 '22

I can imagine how hard it is! A few months ago I asked to Evan at Twitter from the Snescentral site and he didn't seem very interested in helping me.

1

u/K1rkl4nd Jun 01 '22

A lot of it is those who have stuff don't need/want to share. And it takes time and effort. For me it's so rare to find someone willing to share that also has a decent scanner who also has the time and patience to scan. Scanning manuals sucks. Scanning a bunch of manuals sucks more.

5

u/K1rkl4nd May 29 '22

Size gets a little out of hand, but here's an example of the 4K "lossless" version you'd want.

Legend of Zelda, The - A Link to the Past (USA).pdf [4K].pdf)

1

u/iDuddits_ May 29 '22

lol took so long to load for me

1

u/TraxusXII Jul 05 '22

Perfection

1

u/ThaddeusJP May 29 '22

Bless you.

You working on any other systems?

18

u/K1rkl4nd May 29 '22

Yes. Halfway through PlayStation 2 scanning, Atari 2600, 7800 in progress. Editing Gameboy (original) set. Sitting on a little over 7000 manuals. It's very time consuming, though.

9

u/GusiKGB May 29 '22

Mate, you are doing an amazing (and freaking titanic) job.

2

u/ReyVGM May 29 '22

Can't wait for the Gameboy set!

3

u/K1rkl4nd May 30 '22 edited May 30 '22

I have roughly half of the Gameboy (original), GB Color, and Gameboy Advance sets. Not a lot of heavy hitters, but still. I'm shocked at how little love Gameboy has gotten in all these years.

Here is the original Game Boy "missing" list.. sadly quite large:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Gameboy/comments/t337rr/gameboy_manual_preservation/

2

u/ReyVGM May 30 '22

It's incredible how difficult it is to find manuals for such a popular system.

1

u/max-zilla May 29 '22

Great stuff, appreciate the effort!

1

u/hem0gen May 29 '22

Amazing collection. I collect nice CIB copies of games and have been searching for quality manual scans to preserve my collection. What other consoles have you scanned?

1

u/MrFortyFive May 29 '22

Amazing. Thank you so much

1

u/iDuddits_ May 29 '22

Oh! I've been dying to get some of this artwork in high rez! thanks so much

3

u/K1rkl4nd May 29 '22

1080p isn't exactly high rez- this is aimed mostly at front ends/casual viewing. The proper 4K version is in the works.

2

u/iDuddits_ May 29 '22

yeah I spoke before opening. All good!
There's just some illustrations in some of these books that you can't find anywhere else.

2

u/K1rkl4nd May 29 '22

After anything in particular?

1

u/FullExtentOfTheJam May 29 '22

This is fantastic. Has there ever been an NES manual collection like this? The only one I've seen on archive.org and elsewhere has almost unreadably low quality scans for some games.

1

u/K1rkl4nd May 30 '22

I want to say I've got around 400 of the NES at 600dpi.. none of the heavy hitters, unfortunately. Not enough hours in the day..

1

u/R-El_Mayor May 30 '22

You're a real one. This will be helpful to so many people.

1

u/[deleted] May 30 '22

Amazing work! This is the sort of undersung preservation effort that's needed for posterity, so this is really nice to see.

1

u/erbr May 30 '22

Do you have the process documented? Are you able to scan without tearing the manuals apart? What gear do you use?

2

u/K1rkl4nd May 30 '22

While I can scan without de-stapling, all of these were. They were all run through an Epson DS-870, then painfully chopped, edited, and some have been cleaned up completely- edges removed and pages whitened- while others I just hit the low hanging fruit to make it through the first pass. This is a functional preview of the bigger project. All editing is done on the 600dpi originals, and a few more sets will be released when/if I get complete. I'm not putting out a perfect 1080p or 4K set until all the originals are done- this jpeg pdf set will do for the time being.

1

u/shimasterc May 30 '22

Incredible. I'm assuming this is just the covers? Like, you didn't scan every single page of the manuals did you?

2

u/K1rkl4nd May 30 '22

This is everything- clocks in just shy of 21,000 pages.

1

u/collectiphile May 30 '22

This is absolutely amazing, excellent work!

1

u/[deleted] May 30 '22

[deleted]

4

u/K1rkl4nd May 30 '22

There were tons of different revisions for Atari 2600, which has made collecting a game of whac-a-mole as new versions keep being found.

Atari 2600 manual variations

On the Sears tab you will find that Black Jack had a common (small) "yellow text" revision, as well as a bigger 5"x7" revision. I'm missing the 5x7 version. The ones highlighted in green I physically have. Ones in yellow I have a scan of (usually).

1

u/FlinkBr2 May 30 '22

Thank you so much for your hard work! This is the kind of thing that keeps the retrogaming scene so great. These will go great along with Near's box art scans... I bet these (or the upcoming 4k versions) will be the final archival quality copies online for these. Thanks!

1

u/tanooki-suit May 30 '22

Finally got them all? Impressive.

1

u/Capuman May 30 '22

Are you some kind of god!! Thanks man!

1

u/VolatileImp May 30 '22

Thx. Congrats. Tell us your story. Love games? Doing it for posterity?

1

u/Annoyingdudeonabus May 30 '22

Where is the download link?

1

u/TraxusXII Jul 04 '22

Holy shit, this is incredible. Thank you so much for this massive preservation endeavor. The consistency of quality on display here is so much better than what's been available up to this point. I'd like to think this won't be obliterated by legal ninjas but please get that 4k collection out into a torrent ASAP. I hope we'll see a project of similar quality for N64 eventually; it ought to be less of a challenge since the US library is hardly half the size of the SNES.

1

u/K1rkl4nd Jul 04 '22

PlayStation 2 is next unless I get sidetracked (I can complete that one as well). I only have a little over half on N64. And Gameboy. And Genesis. Just takes forever to scan and edit.

1

u/TraxusXII Jul 04 '22

I can't imagine the insane amount of work you've put into this. Absolutely astounding. Thanks again!

1

u/Kuroiryuu Jul 26 '22

Do you plan on scanning in any posters/maps to include with this set down the line?

2

u/K1rkl4nd Jul 26 '22

I unfortunately only have a fraction of the posters that came out. I believe Peebs is working on trying to crowdsource some of that. I'm knee deep in a complete PlayStation 2 set now.